Donetsk & Luhansk

• Donetsk and Luhansk are two states located in eastern Ukraine, which share a border with Russia.
• Within these two states are two separatist territories known as the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), which are run by Russian and Russian-backed separatists.
• This entire region, which includes Donetsk, Luhansk and their respective separatist territories, is generally referred to as the ‘Donbas’ region.
• The separatist portions of Donetsk and Luhansk have been largely cut off from Ukraine since 2014, and consist of very small populations.
• DPR is home to 2.3 million people while LPR has a population of around 1.5 million. 
• Both are primarily industrial areas on the border with Russia on the northern banks of the Black Sea — home to vast coal reserves.

Self-proclaimed Independence

• The pro-Russian separatist regions in Donetsk and Luhansk had declared independence from Ukraine in 2014.
• No country had recognised the republics as sovereign states until now. But Russia recently announced that it would recognize the independence of both the regions.
• Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2014 and annexed its southern autonomous republic of Crimea. This was after Crimea, primarily made up of Russian speakers, voted to join the Russian Federation in a disputed local referendum.
• Two months later, rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk held similarly disputed referendums, the results of which paved the way for the separatist territories to be declared as LPR and DPR.